I must say that I find it ironic that the first book since the destruction of DS9 reads like it might have been an episode of the series. It was like seeing some old friends again.

(As for Sela, I always wanted to see her find out that her origin wasn't quite what she thought. IE: That Tasha was impregnated involuntarily specifically to produce a Romulan-Human hybrid, sort of Romulus's answer to Spock. No that doesn't happen in the book and I'm only mentioning it because now it won't.)

It's utterly shattered. The central core has been destroyed by the exploding reactors, while the outer rings and connecting corridors have been cast off into space by the explosion. Fortunately the emergency bulkheads allowed nearly six hundred people to ride out the explosion on the station, and the command staff in Ops was rescued by a runabout making a run with transporters, but, yes.

Construction on a new Deep Space Nine begins almost immediately thereafter.

The biggest death--one that was probably inevitable, given what she had done in the two books of the duology--was that of Sela. Indistinguishable from Magic brought out for me the extent to which Sela was a tragic figure, a very talented individual forever caught in the guilt of the moment when, as a very young girl, she screamed in terror and doomed her mother to execution. She was just never able to get past that moment, never able to process things. There's an irony in that it was the threat of being sent to Earth as a prisoner that made her take her own life.

Tomalak seems to have been removed from the board indefinitely. (Imprisoned on Earth by the Federation, left there by the displeased Praetor to make a point.)

At the other end of the moral spectrum, Kira seems to be with the Prophets, now. The Prophets also seem to have taken an extended vacation from the realm of the linear--unsurprising, the way their home kept getting abused.

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Really? WTF? First Captain Janeway and now Captain Kira? I guess the novelverse is going to kill every strong female lead we've come to know and love except for Dax. 10 Captain Daxs are not worth 1 of Kira. I'm sick of the Dax as captain worship.

(As for Sela, I always wanted to see her find out that her origin wasn't quite what she thought. IE: That Tasha was impregnated involuntarily specifically to produce a Romulan-Human hybrid, sort of Romulus's answer to Spock. No that doesn't happen in the book and I'm only mentioning it because now it won't.)

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In a very real sense, Sela is Spock's Romulan counterpart: of mixed ancestry, born to a prominent Vulcanoid male and a female human of no standing within the Vulcanoid society where they were raised, as adults they both were exceptionally talented individuals capable of achieving things on a galactic scale. Sela arguably surpassed Spock in this, becoming an actor for Romulan galactic interests in her 30s.

(I've argued here that the plot in "Reunification" for the invasion of Vulcan actually makes sense if you assume--as has been established in the novels--that there's some pro-Romulan sentiment on Vulcan. That planet's High Command had been sockpuppeted by the Romulans in the 22nd century, after all, and an arrogant Romulan elite might well believe that Vulcans wanted to be reunited.)

The critical problem for Sela, sadly, was that her society was much more repressive than Spock's. Spock's mother was able to find her way on Vulcan as a free individual; Sela's mother was a general's chattel, executed for trying to escape with her child. Romulan racism is certainly orders of magnitude more severe than anything on present-day Vulcan; Sela did well to achieve everything that she did.

Sela's life was distorted by these hatreds, alas, inculcating a toxic self-hatred that expressed itself in repeated attacks against the Federation. Her life was ultimately ended at the pinnacle of her achievements by this hatred, when as Chairwoman of the Tal Shi'ar she authorized--against the Praetor's express wishes--attacks on the Federation. She ended up taking her life rather than be extradited to the Federation. Sela could never step away from being the young girl whose scream in the night led to her mother's execution.

I don't know, based purely on what was said in the spoilers above, I'd actually say that Kira joining The Prophets is a very positive outcome, and given where they were going with the stuff set up in Warpath, and what we've seen in the last few stories with her it seems like a logical end for that arc. I think it's also a great way to tie up (this chapter of?) her story. And if she joined The Prophets like Sisko did, then she could easily return in a later story. As for DS9, while I am disappointed to see it gone, I'm more than willing to wait and see what happens.
EDIT: As for losing a female Captain, we do have Ro now, and Kira was no longer a Captain, so we're pretty much at the same place now in terms of female leaders as we were before these books.

Honestly, hearing about all this actually makes me a lot more excited for the story.
EDIT: I'd been trying to hold off buying more books until I got more of my stuff on my to read list finished (I have 152 books in my "I plan to read" list on Shelfari), but I might have to splurge and get these tomorrow, not knowing exactly what's going on is driving me crazy.

we didn't lose DS9 the institution; we merely lost one physical incarnation of it.

I can't buy a copy of the book until the 30th at the earliest, but am kind of disappointed by something I spoiled myself on via Memory Beta.

Apparently, Miles O'Brien comes back to oversee the construction of the new DS9, and ends up taking his former position as Chief Engineer of the station. I have nothing against O'Brien, but feel sort of cheated and disappointed because we just got to see Lt. Cmdr. Chao in the role of CE during and then she ends up being supplanted/replaced in the very next book.

I was so looking forward to reading this book, and couldn't wait until amazon informed me that the book was ready to download onto my kindle. It downloaded this morning and wouldn't you know it, I immediately got a low battery warning message. The battery was showing only half empty! I was so disappointed and mad - I ignored the message and started reading anyway. Love it so far.